The Mozilla Foundation released its annual financial report for 2013 last Friday, and it wasn’t exactly good news. With revenues increasing by just one percent from the year before, and it’s main benefactor Google Inc. about to wave goodbye, it raises questions about Mozilla’s ability to advance its stated mission to promote openness, innovation & opportunity on the Web.

Some ninety percent of Mozilla’s revenues have famously come from Google, which has been the default search provider for its Firefox browser since 2004. Every time someone enters a search query into Firefox, that generates cash for Google via its Adsense ads, and portion of this goes to Mozilla.

But the nonprofit organization’s revenues rose by a measly one percent to $314 million in 2013, according to a tax filing it published last week. It’s still an increase, but a very small one when we consider it saw a 90 percent revenue increase from 2011 to 2012, and increase of 18 and 33 percent in the preceeding years.

What’s more, Mozilla’s expenses increased by 40 percent as well, which means that it’s cash flow fell to just $36.9 million in 2013, down from $70.3 million the year before. Once again, about 90 percent of Mozilla’s revenues came from Google, but that’s about to change. Last Friday the organization announced it had signed a deal to make Yahoo! its default search provider in the US from this December, while Baidu and Yandex are the default search providers in China and Russia.

“In the end, each of the partnership options available to us had strong, improved economic terms reflecting the significant value that Firefox brings to the ecosystem,” wrote Chris Beard, CEO of Mozilla, in a statement.

Firefox in decline?

No one is arguing that Firefox doesn’t offer any value, but it doesn’t have quite the same power it once held. The Firefox browser’s influence is on the wane, accounting for just 12 percent of usage across all devices according to StatCounter, while Net Applications puts its share a tad higher at 14 percent. The problem is that people are slowly but surely opting to use alternatives like Google’s Chrome and Apple Inc’s Safari, but that isn’t the only trouble. Also of concern is the growing rise of mobile devices.

Mozilla has tried to tap into this new world with the invention of Firefox for Android and its Firefox OS platform. But to date its barely made a dent in the mobile arena, with Firefox accounting for just 0.5% of all usage on tablets and smartphones, according to StatCounter. That will change if Firefox OS manages to get off the ground, but it’s still a very big “if” – although Mozilla is pouring a lot of resources into the project, Firefox OS phones are only available in 24 countries, mostly developing nations where many consumers are yet to purchase their first smartphone.

Of course, Mozilla still has one big advantage we mustn’t forget. It’s not a company at all, but a nonprofit organization, which means it doesn’t have to appease any shareholders or venture capitalists. So long as its income matches or exceeds its expenditure (and it does), Mozilla will always be able to exist.

For fans of Mozilla’s browser, that’s welcome news. Even though its revenues have plateaued, $314 million should be more than enough to keep Firefox’s development ticking over. But with Google out of the picture Mozilla’s revenues could easily fall off a cliff, and that could seriously undermine its hopes of making Firefox OS a viable mobile platform.

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